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Expressions of
High Status
A Comparative Synthesis

Jean-Pascal Daloz
Expressions of High Status
 Jean-Pascal Daloz

Expressions of
High Status
A Comparative Synthesis
Translated from French by the author
Jean-Pascal Daloz
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (SAGE)
University of Strasbourg, France

ISBN 978-3-031-05400-6    ISBN 978-3-031-05401-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05401-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
1st edition: © Max Milo éditions 2021
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For Noëlla
 Preface to the English Edition

This is the third volume I have devoted to the comparative study of social
distinction at the top of societies.
In The Sociology of Elite Distinction: From Theoretical to Comparative
Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), my aim was to discuss all the
models of interpretation at our disposal. I argued that a serious approach
to the topic required close analysis of the representations and practices
through which high status is signified in any given time and place, rather
than deductively applying ready-made schemes of explanation to dispa-
rate cases. While I did insist on the problematically reductive assump-
tions of most available theoretical frameworks, my nuanced view was that
they all generated useful insights but should be seen at best as tools that
prove more or less relevant from one setting to the next.
That book is now a standard reference. However, beyond this first
(critical) step, I was logically led to fully reconsider the subject in a com-
parative mode. My objective was, above all, to develop foundations
avoiding ethnocentrism and the risks of undue extrapolation.1 In
Rethinking Social Distinction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), I thus tried to
show how it is possible to provide middle-range theorisations, without
succumbing either to the lure of grand universal claims or to excessive
relativism. More precisely, revisiting many important themes,2 I identi-
fied divergent patterns of social distinction and formulated hypotheses in

vii
viii Preface to the English Edition

order to account for significant variations. Interpreting them requires

inductive work aimed at deciphering contextually meaningful codes,
which calls for non-dogmatic reasoning.
The idea of writing a third volume, of a more empirical nature, was
suggested to me by friends and colleagues from both sides of the
Atlantic. They tend to think that after so many years of investigation all
over the world, and so much reading, I have acquired an ‘encyclopedic
knowledge’ of social distinction matters. This is definitely an overstate-
ment but they managed to convince me that it would be relevant to
offer a kind of ‘learned excursion’ across time and space. In The Sociology
of Elite Distinction, fifty pages had been dedicated to providing a pan-
orama of the key forms through which social superiority is expressed.
The intention was mainly to establish a background for discussing the
merits and limits of the analytical frameworks presented in the first part
of the book.
I have re-investigated this corpus with a different and more ambitious
goal in mind: to identify the manifestations and logics of eminent sta-
tus, from the Neolithic era onwards and all over the world. Many aspects
that had only been mentioned in passing (such as distinction through
animals, or issues of precedence, for instance) have now received a full
treatment. This new opus draws on my own field enquiries and the con-
sultation of more than 2500 academic multidisciplinary publications
dealing directly or indirectly with the theme. I have notably used the
wonderful facilities offered at Oxford and Yale to do intensive research
in libraries.
I would like to insist on the fact that Expressions of High Status is not a
history of social distinction, nor is it a mere compilation, but the brain-­
child of a comparativist. I must say that, since I started working on this
project in 2017, I have often thought that it would have paradoxically
been easier to produce half a dozen compendium volumes, punctiliously
mentioning all my sources. What is proposed here is a selection. Cases
and illustrations have been chosen primarily for the clarity with which
they demonstrate the variety of detectable patterns.
Let me add that, for a change, I first wrote the manuscript in French
and the original edition of the present book came out in Paris in May
2021.3 However, what you have in your hands is not just a translation but
 Preface to the English Edition ix

in some respects a slightly different version. The Bibliography (focusing

rather this time on empirical contributions) is more extensive and indexes
are provided.
One last point. As readers familiar with my work know, I often find
that if the terminology sometimes used to subsume all sort of realities
proves convenient and in a way inevitable, it is far from being entirely
satisfactory from a comparative point of view. In this respect, I am quite
conscious of the debatable character of the concept of ‘high status’ used
for the title of this book, but possible alternatives had their demerits
as well.

StrasbourgJean-Pascal Daloz
October 2021

Notes
1. Knowing that many grand theories with ubiquitous pretension were typi-
cally derived from the study of a single society, usually that of the analyst:
e.g. Veblen’s ‘Gilded Age’ America, Bourdieu’s France of the 1960–1970s,
and so forth.
2. From conspicuousness and understatement to reference models, symbolic
consistency, strategic or unconscious grounds of distinction, among others.
3. Under the title: Expressions de supériorité. Petite encyclopédie des distinctions
élitistes (Max Milo).
 Acknowledgements

My first debt is to Jeffrey Alexander for his continuous support regarding

my attempts to reconsider the analysis of social distinction. Thanks to his
invitation to the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology in 2017–2018, I was
able to consult a multitude of publications, which eventually made this
‘comparative synthesis’ possible. I truly enjoyed the intellectual atmo-
sphere there and had very pleasant discussions with Jeff and many fel-
lows—a special mention being due to Trygve Broch.
Before this English version, came the French one. I have several friends
and colleagues to thank for their support at that stage, but none more
than Benjamin Caraco. We have known each other since our Oxford days
and, most luckily for me, he was subsequently appointed to the University
of Strasbourg where he now serves as deputy chief librarian. In many
ways (from our early discussions over lunch, his meticulous proof-­reading
of the manuscript, to his precious help when it came to promoting the
book in our country), he played such a crucial role. I cannot stress enough
how important he has been to me in recent years.
I am most grateful to Jean-Charles Gérard, my Paris publisher, who
expressed a strong interest just 50 minutes after having received the book
proposal, and to François Noudelmann (the editor of the ‘Voix libres’
series), who also kindly invited me to present this work at the Maison
Française of New York University. I should like to thank, as usual, my

xi
xii Acknowledgements

good old friends Patrick Bayard, Yann Fauchois, Patrice Meynier and
Katri Vallaste who either suggested ideas and illustrations, provided doc-
umentation, or solved tricky grammatical difficulties.
As for this English version, I wish notably to acknowledge the support
of my dear friends and colleagues, Fred Turner and John Higley, as well
that of my former post-doctoral assistant Neil Martin (now a policy ana-
lyst at OECD). Many thanks to Mahalia Gayle for the aid she provided
with the translation, especially her final proof-reading. Last but certainly
not least, let me express my gratitude to Sharla Plant, Liam Inscoe-Jones,
Connie Li and the staff at Springer for their great professionalism, and to
the two anonymous reviewers who recommended that my proposal be
accepted as it stood.
 Other books by Jean-Pascal Daloz

La représentation politique. Armand Colin, 2017

Rethinking Social Distinction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
The Sociology of Elite Distinction: From Theoretical to Comparative
Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
Culture Troubles: Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning. Hurst/The
University of Chicago Press, 2006 (with P. Chabal)
Élites et représentations politiques. La culture de l’échange inégal au Nigeria.
Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2002
Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. James Currey/Indiana UP,
1999 (with P. Chabal); French version: Économica, 1999; Spanish ver-
sion: Bellaterra, 2001
Société et politique au Nigeria. Bibliographie annotée, réflexions sur l’état
d’avancement des connaissances. Centre d’Étude d’Afrique Noire
Bordeaux, 1992

Edited volumes:

The Palgrave Handbook of Political Elites. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017 (with

H. Best, J. Higley et al.)
Political Leadership in a Global Age: The Experiences of France and Norway.
Ashgate, 2003 (with H. Baldersheim); re-published by Routledge in 2019
xiii
xiv Other books by Jean-Pascal Daloz

Le (non-)renouvellement des élites en Afrique subsaharienne. Centre d’Étude

d’Afrique Noire Bordeaux, 1999
Transitions démocratiques africaines. Dynamiques et contraintes. Karthala,
1997 (with P. Quantin)
Paris, Pretoria and the African Continent: The International Relations of
States and Societies in Transition. Macmillan, 1996 (with C. Alden)
La Zambie contemporaine. Karthala, 1996 (with J. Chileshe)
French Revolution: A Nigerian Perspective. Macmillan, 1990 (with
E. Nwokedi)
Leading Issues in Territorial Decentralisation in Nigeria and France.
Ahmadu Bello UP, 1989 (with E.A.O. Oyeyipo et al.)
 Contents

1 I ntroduction  1

Part I External Signs   9

2 A
 dornments 17

3 R
 esidences 39

4 V
 ehicles 57

5 F
 ood 73

6 B
 urials 93

Part II Embodied Signs 107

7 Self-Confidence and Assertiveness111

8 P
 hysical Appearance125

xv
xvi Contents

9 D
 istinguished Manners141

10 Cultivation and Linguistic Competence157

Part III Vicarious Display 175

11 Relatives and Glamorous (Fe)male Company179

12 F
 launting Connections197

13 S
 ervants209

14 A
 rtists227

15 A
 nimals241

Part IV Status-Related Interactions 255

16 Telling Bodily Attitudes259

17 P
 recedence277

18 G
 ift Exchange293

19 C
 onclusion311

B
 ibliography315

N
 ame Index335

S
 ubject Index345
 1
Introduction

This work aims to compare social distinction practices worldwide and

over the centuries. Its ambition is to show how diverse the expressions
and rationales of symbolic superiority can be.
Such a comparative endeavour is a reaction against several types of
perspectives. First, as was explained in the preamble, my intention is not
to produce a catalogue, but to reason in terms of divergences and simi-
larities. Second, the book is utterly opposed to grand theories with uni-
versalist pretentions, which claim to be able to reduce the analysis of
social distinction to a few major principles deemed ubiquitous. Third,
the approach is in no way normative. Let me point out that the universal-
ist and normative veins are often related. When the main concern is a
radical critique of ‘mechanisms of domination’, what matters is to con-
firm the prevalence of allegedly structural invariants, whereas the singu-
larities of the patterns of meaning are considered negligible.

Comparative Explorations
When research is not prejudiced by dogmatic assumptions and when the
empirical findings of many disciplines are fully taken into account, a real
diversity of scenarios can indeed be perceived. In order to give the reader

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

J.-P. Daloz, Expressions of High Status, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05401-3_1
2 J.-P. Daloz

a foretaste of what will be developed in this volume, I would like to pro-

vide three brief illustrations of conflicting codes.
Regarding greetings, there are contexts where people of lower rank are
expected to address their respectful salutations to superiors, out of defer-
ence. There are others where they must do no such thing because it is the
dominant person who has the initiative of granting a sign of recognition
to subordinates, or of ignoring them.
Let us now take the example of a scolded servant. In certain parts of
the world, it will be required that he keep his eyes lowered, thus showing
his submission or even shame. But elsewhere, that kind of behaviour
could be apprehended as expressing a lack of attention to the chastise-
ment uttered.1
From the perspective of many analysts, these contradictory principles
are somewhat trivial. What counts in their eyes is that interactions state
an unequal relationship of power and that in the end the individual
belonging to the upper strata enjoys a leading position, remaining in
control of the situation. The whole purpose of the present book is, on the
contrary, to attach the greatest interest to such discrepancies, which are
by no means superficial, and to grasp the motives behind them.
But for the time being, here is a third illustration, of a deliberately dif-
ferent nature. Dresses with trains have long been a sign of belonging to
the privileged circles. As Veblen has clearly established, wearing very
voluminous, luxurious attire indicates that one is not forced to do any
kind of manual work.2 Reciprocally, in seventeenth-century Holland,
maids used to wear slightly shorter skirts, which facilitated their move-
ments and provided information on their subordinate condition.
However, in Ming China (in the same era), a Hanfu touching the ground
was looked upon as humiliating. Such was the fate of high-society wid-
ows who had the right to hem them only after a year of mourning. Let
me add that new fashions have sometimes incited ladies to have their
dresses a bit rolled up in order to show off pretty shoes, delicate ankles or
sumptuous petticoats.
In other words, the very same sign is liable to refer to totally contradic-
tory conventions. Their correct interpretation presupposes a good under-
standing of the cultural codes in force. This is not a futile exercise, but
one that should be at the heart of the analysis of social distinction.
 1 Introduction 3

Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

The method that has made this synthesis possible is rather unorthodox.
At least a dozen disciplines contribute to our acquaintance with expres-
sions of high status. It was therefore necessary not to dig furrows in one
and only one chosen field (say sociology), but to follow various paths. I
should immediately point out that the intention was, of course, not to
substitute myself for researchers working in this or that sector. It is never-
theless crucial for the comparativist to take into consideration all avail-
able knowledge, whatever its origin.
Most likely, many of the brief surveys that will be given here concern-
ing certain aspects, societies or periods will appear succinct to specialists.
However, the distance imparted by a broad perspective, encompassing
numerous contexts from the Neolithic period to the contemporary world,
as well as a wide range of key manifestations of social distinction, begets
a wholly different sort of competence. When combined with a sound
command of all existing theorisations, it allows one to point out the
approximations of various conceptual borrowings and to suggest parallels
likely to be ignored by experts confined to their narrow fields of research.
Indeed, quite often, it turns out that some authors are unaware of the
analyses of adjacent disciplines and make pseudo-discoveries.
With that clarification, let me now review the main disciplines on
which my comparisons are based. Especially in the case of very ancient
settings, archaeological discussions are far from being secondary. This
activity, originally conducted by amateurs who favoured an empirical and
rather classificatory approach used to disdain abstract formalisations.
Later, to a certain extent, it was to draw inspiration from ethnology when
it came to interpretation. Today it fully takes part in the fundamental
debates stirring up the social sciences. Archaeology is important because
of the priority it gives to the study of prestige goods (often the only ones
whose remains are preserved) in relation to the advent of ‘complex’ soci-
eties resulting from a process of institutionalisation of inequalities.3
In view of their keenness to understand non-Western cultures and the
relativism this induces, ethnological perspectives valuably widen our
horizons. Admittedly, when anthropology (then a more appropriate
4 J.-P. Daloz

designation) pretends to identify so-called ‘structural invariants’, it com-

mands much less adhesion. Fortunately, however, the majority of field
researchers interested in status and ascendancy give due weight to local
meanings.4
History will necessarily occupy a primordial place in the chapters that
follow; especially the type which helps us to realise how societies of the
past are, as is sometimes said, ‘like faraway countries’ with their deeply
unfamiliar mentalities. In this discipline, crucially guarding us against
anachronism, a number of specialisations (such as cultural history, his-
tory of the body, and so forth) prove most relevant when it comes to
tracing dynamics and even full reversals. That being said, apart from a
few monographs and edited volumes treating of the subject, most expres-
sions of social superiority have to be found in books that deal with them
only in passing. The gathering here is akin to a patient search for signifi-
cant elements.
We will see that art history can also be very instructive. Wavering
between purely aesthetic perspectives that seek to define styles and others
that apprehend art as a mirror of society, the discipline appears to be
particularly fruitful when it deciphers the modalities of elitist staging.
The meticulous studies of portraits (clothing choices, as well as distin-
guished poses and accessories) allow us to grasp the reasons for many
conventions, both in and of themselves, and within representations.
Sociology could justifiably be considered a mainstay. However, while
its empirical contribution is undeniable, the science of society has been
mainly concerned with theorising. Surveys of distinction have tended to
be conducted in a deductive way, based on rigid frameworks. Given the
rivalries between schools of thought, it is often more a matter of defend-
ing one’s favourite theoretical apparatus in the face of competing views
than of discovering original dimensions with no preconceived ideas. In
this respect, many interpretations that should be hypothetical turn out to
be presuppositions. In addition, one witnesses a strong propensity for
intellectualism, with investigators increasingly adopting militant postures
and reducing most occurrences to explanatory factors pertaining to nar-
row ‘sociologism’.5 Nonetheless, lots of field researches abound with
stimulating remarks and even in those books where the selected points
 1 Introduction 5

have an excessively demonstrative function, noteworthy manifestations

of distinction are sometimes described.
Sociological contributions must be supplemented by those of related
disciplines. Thus, some socio-economic readings on consumption and
marketing prove very useful. The same is true in socio-linguistics, as we
shall see. Psycho-sociology, a branch that focuses on interactions between
individuals or small groups, is full of sophisticated analyses that question,
for instance, the emulating or destabilising effects of confrontations with
people who are more or less well off than oneself. Authors at the junction
of geography and sociology also produce works that enrich our under-
standing of the relationship to space and mobility, among others, all the
more so when they are sensitive to cultural aspects. Then, bearing in
mind that parallels with animal behaviour certainly have their limits,
some lessons can be drawn from ethology, especially regarding indicators
of primacy meant to reiterate hierarchies. Neither should one forget the
political science writings examining the vectors of supremacy of those
elites that can be defined as political (my other main subject).
Finally, I have not hesitated to draw on fictional works and relevant
studies by researchers in literature.6 Many codes of distinction are
depicted therein, at times with great discernment. Some novels also revive
vanished gestures. Of course, one should approach this type of text with
the necessary precautions. It is indeed possible that stylistic constraints
alter what is described (a phenomenon well known, for instance, in medi-
eval manuscripts), or that the writer tends to invent and exaggerate.
When reading novels teeming with notations on precious objects, orna-
ments and dazzling ceremonies, one sometimes wonders whether they
should be regarded as a credible account of the universe in question, or as
a satire? Anyway, it would be wrong to ignore the literary corpus.7

Interpretations
Most of the classical thinkers of social distinction managed to construct
their models after much effort of abstraction. The more abstract the ana-
lytical schemes, the more applicable they seem to be to all kinds of cases.
On the other hand, when one takes a multitude of empirical studies (with
6 J.-P. Daloz

their wealth of detail) into consideration, the mass of information gath-

ered may look quite difficult to reconcile with theorising. However, it is
possible to reason in a different way: not yielding to an almost obsessive
quest for features and laws assumed to be permanent (in imitation of the
‘hard’ sciences), but aiming to identify all sorts of configurations follow-
ing a perspective much more respectful of the cultural diversity of human
societies.
This is why what is going to be presented here differs from normative
(admirative or condemnatory) essays depicting in a trivial fashion the
lifestyle of ‘the rich’, as well as from the illusions of theoretical construc-
tions with universalist pretensions. This does not mean giving up analyti-
cal ambitions. It means that any serious examination of social distinction
can help bring to light a multiplicity of dissimilar scenarios. To be sure,
in the chapters to come, we will encounter some trans-cultural and trans-­
historical patterns, for example in relation to the uses of verticality or
distance. Nevertheless, I will also have the opportunity to point out many
antithetical logics: eminence being based on extreme visibility or invisi-
bility, playing on quality or quantity, antiquity or novelty, isolation or
entourage, ostensible comfort or ascetism, and so on.
What such an approach calls for is a method that gives a lot of impor-
tance to the meaning that social actors attach to their representations and
practices. This is a type of ‘scientificity’ aimed not at abstract generalisa-
tion but at the interpretation of what makes sense (or not) to them. To
return to one of the illustrations provided earlier, the excess fabric of the
trains may certainly be viewed as an assertion of opulence in some con-
texts. However, a dress sweeping the ground may depreciate the person
wearing it in others. When I come to the issues of ‘elitist hindrances’
(possibly compensated by the intercession of servants), ‘noble domestic-
ity’, precedence, and disputes over who was supposed to hold the ‘tails’ of
the ladies at the top of the status pyramid, we will see that the subject can
be even more complex.
Here I join the ‘interpretativist’ tradition advocated by Clifford Geertz
in continuation of Max Weber’s ‘comprehensive’ method.8 It encourages
us to truly penetrate the universes of meaning, as I will do throughout.
This book is composed of seventeen thematic chapters which will, of
course, bring out broad outlines, somewhat counterbalanced by the fact
 1 Introduction 7

that multiple cultural disparities will be taken into account. These chap-
ters are divided into four parts: a first one devoted to external signs; a
second one to embodied signs of distinction; a third one to vicarious
display; and a final one to status-related interactions. Each will be pre-
ceded by an introduction on, respectively, the properties of prestige
goods, the internalisation of superiority, the use of the entourage, and the
study of direct confrontations. While it is clarifying to isolate symbolic
facets in this way, they obviously often intersect.
Let me add that despite the unprecedented scale and scope of this
attempt at synthesis, there is no aspiration for exhaustiveness here. The
intention is above all to present significant aspects of how distinction
operates in various contexts.

Notes
1. One thinks of the order ‘Look at me when I am talking to you!’.
2. T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York, Dover Publications,
1994 [1899].
3. To take an illustration from a recent book, when an archaeologist examin-
ing small, enamelled iron-age pins concludes that, due to their reduced
size, they could not have held clothes but that their shiny side was likely
to attract attention, it enriches my comparisons around the utilitarian/
symbolic dimensions of external signs of distinction. S. Adams, ‘Personal
Object and Personal Identity in the Iron Age: The Case of the Earliest
Brooches’, in T. F. Martin & R. Weetch (eds), Dress and Society:
Contributions from Archaeology, Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017.
4. Explaining, for example, how marks of dignity among Polynesians are
incomprehensible if the essential categories of mana and taboo are not
included.
5. In this respect, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, reducing perceptions and
attitudes to class positions alone, is symptomatic. Distinction: A Social
Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge, 1984 [original ver-
sion in French 1979]. This makes sociology the key discipline, but at the
price of erasing intercultural differences.
6. From articles on clothing as a status indicator in Turgenev to the symbol-
ism of cars in Steinbeck, for example. I will come back to this.
8 J.-P. Daloz

7. Regarding relationships between sociologists and novelists, an extraordi-

nary episode was that of the rivalry between one of the pioneers of field
research on social stratification in the United States, W. Lloyd Warner
(coordinator of huge investigations, notably in the town of Newburyport)
and J.P. Marquand, a famous novelist (Pulitzer Prize winner) from the
selfsame Massachusetts town. The writer claimed to understand the fami-
lies of the local elite much better than did the social scientist who is
bluntly portrayed in one of his fictions (Point of No Return, Boston: Little
Brown and C°, 1949).
8. C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic
Books, 1973.
 Part I
External Signs

On Prestige Goods

Of all the markers of social eminence, the possession of valuable material
goods is probably the one that comes to mind first. Whether as indicators
of refinement, reliability, comfort, or in view of their highly desirable rar-
ity, these outward attributes often represent the most noticeable signals of
elevated status. Rich in diversity, they offer an excellent introduction
indeed to the complexities and multifaceted logics of distinction.
Philosophical writings about the perpetual question of luxury in rela-
tion to the ‘real needs’ of Man set aside,1 it is to ethnology that we owe
the seminal reflections on the subject. Taking their field observations as a
starting point, some investigators have sought to establish lists of the
most valued items. This has led to the hypothesis of a ‘subsistence goods/
prestige goods’ dichotomy: the latter being mainly used to adorn digni-
taries, for rituals, or as bargaining chips. However, such a divide was
quickly criticised because the boundary between the two categories was
far from clear in many of the communities studied. The same applies to
‘modern’ societies, especially in times of rapid growth. Historians have
pointed out that some consumer goods once considered totally inacces-
sible to the majority of a population could be taken for granted one or
two generations later. Interest in such approaches was revived in the
10 External Signs

1970s, again primarily thanks to anthropologists, but also archaeologists

and prehistorians, all trying to understand the role that the accumulation
of highly coveted items had probably played in the development of hier-
archical social structures. ‘Economy of prestige goods’ models, heavily
influenced by Marxist theories, were developed. They consider in which
ways the monopolisation of certain raw materials, value added through
processing work, ostentatious exhibition of the objects produced, and
strategic barter with more or less remote communities, may have sup-
ported the emergence of inegalitarian systems.
Such a materialistic reading was to be widely challenged by cultural
anthropology. Pointing to serious risks of reductionism, the tenants of
this latter vein of thought aim to give the importance they deserve to the
logics of meaning surrounding prestigious goods.2 This leads us to view
them from many different angles, whether they are ‘pure signs’ or useful
artefacts, indivisible or divisible, etc. Following this kind of multidimen-
sional reading, what I am going to propose here, as a preliminary, is a
tentative inventory of the properties liable to contribute to social
distinction.
Let us start with some inherent dimensions. Prestige goods may be
ephemeral or eminently durable, the transience of some resulting from
their perishable nature. Fresh flowers constantly renewed in palaces or
luxury hotels are a good illustration of a distinctive sign that plays on this
criterion.3 We may also think of perfume that must be continually reap-
plied to the skin. Frequently, ephemerality is related to the fact that the
good disappears as soon as it is consumed, the most obvious examples
being, of course, food and drink (which may, however, be kept for a lon-
ger or shorter time before being ingested). A third form of limited dura-
bility concerns rental. If an individual rents a Lamborghini as well as a
room at the Burj al-Arab in Dubai, these will indeed remain afterwards,
but others will be enjoying them. This is a theme quite amenable to
receiving sociological treatment.4 Finally, some objects are destined to be
used only once (the wedding dress in many cultural contexts), or to be
considered debasing because they are out of fashion, which corresponds
to yet another scenario. Conversely, there are goods that are passed on
from generation to generation, resulting in a kind of eternally renewed
 External Signs 11

posterity. Here, we enter the realm of distinction through ‘patina’, with

venerable wear and tear contributing to status.
This brings me to a second sub-theme which is relatively similar: that
of solidity versus fragility, both of which can have a distinctive character.
The subject matter is more complex than it might seem, with some
robust-like goods being quite vulnerable (to fire, damage, etc.), taking
into account their composition or exposure. Thirdly, it is important to
think in terms of heavy versus light objects. What is massive and imposing
is certainly likely to impress, but it may also prove cumbersome, difficult
to move or even impossible to transport. These aspects are worthy of
interest in that they open up a whole field of reflection on flexibility.
Light and small goods have their advantages (in case of a hasty departure,
it is preferable to have jewellery than ingots). This raises a final point,
again with regard to inherent properties. Even though some artifacts
made of precious materials may have been admirably crafted, the question
is whether the attraction to them is first and foremost related to their
components. A beautiful crystal vase, if it breaks, is worthless. On the
other hand, it is well known that, in the past, silverware could be melted
down to finance military campaigns. This kind of duality leads to two
potential types of distinction: one that is primarily sensitive to substance,
and the second to other assessment logics. In the latter case, one some-
times observes a predilection for objects that have no intrinsic value but
are extraordinarily prized by virtue of purely aesthetic conventions (such
as certain bamboo bowls used for the tea ceremony in Japan).
A completely different approach to prestige goods consists in consider-
ing their origin. They may be locally produced, the spoils of war, tributes,
acquired through exchange, donation or extortion of subordinates,
ordered from a supplier, and so on. An important aspect from a compara-
tive point of view is the extent to which exotic products are very much
sought after. Quite frequently, an extreme craze for what is not available
at home can be detected. Anthropological research shows that in Polynesia
and Central America in particular, some goods seemed all the more
endowed with an aura as they were associated with mysterious horizons.
The ability to acquire them presupposed having the means to organise
faraway travel and to possess products attractive enough to be bartered.5
Specialists of the late prehistoric period report circulation over
12 External Signs

astonishing distances. Exceptional goods were then appropriated by the

indigenous elites, the question arising as to whether or not the imported
products had vernacular equivalents. What is more, some conquerors
proved to be ‘conquered by their conquests’, adopting not only a new
lifestyle, but many of the objects encountered.6 However, there are also
cases of systematic rejection of almost anything coming from abroad (as
with some Chinese dynasties), of goods that seem to be valued only
locally, as well as occurrences of deliberate alteration (perhaps with the
intention of ‘neutralizing’ the foreign character of what was introduced).
As early as antiquity, there have also been objects whose prestige derives
from the fact that they previously belonged to famous people, leading to
an impressive history meant to reflect positively on the current owner.
Besides, several cities began to be identified as producers of artifacts of
infinitely superior quality that could be boasted of.7
This brings us to take into account other properties of luxury goods,
related to their manufacturing, their protection, maintenance and even
possibilities of renovation. Some in the past have proven tremendously
attractive due to the extreme difficulty of obtaining them (e.g. saffron,
spondylus) or of processing them (ivory). Nowadays, faced with mass
production, high-end craftsmanship firms (providing tailor-made cre-
ations and imposing long waiting lists) know full well how to exploit a
new quest for excellence, scarcity and costliness paradoxically boosting
demand.8 Such a perspective prompts to consider what surrounds very
expensive objects. What I have in mind is notably the topic of exquisite
cases and boxes aiming at intensifying the feeling of distinction, but
which, undeniably, may also play a useful protective role. The issue of the
periodic maintenance of particularly delicate or large materials opens up
interesting avenues of research as well. Finally, one should not neglect the
question of the restoration or even embellishment of prestige goods,
some (such as jewellery) lending themselves better to this exercise than
others. Here, the objective may be to look for real improvements, but
what is primarily at stake is often a desire for restyling according to
one’s taste.
To talk of outward signs of superiority9 obviously implies a certain
degree of visibility. This, however, is a more complicated matter than it
seems intuitively. It has been recognised, since at least the writings of
 External Signs 13

Herbert Spencer, that both exhibition and concealment can express gran-
deur. Keeping some possessions out of sight is likely to confer on them a
kind of aura.10 The imagined presence of a house completely hidden by
high walls may prove as intimidating as the villa of the magnate who had
all the surrounding trees cut down in order to show if off. I would also
point out that while certain categories of goods are a priori more visible
than others, it is sometimes necessary to reason within them. If we take
vehicles, for instance, there is quite a contrast between the convertible
which allows you to see the driver as well as whoever accompanies him,
and the limousine with its tinted windows. In addition, some distinctive
details require close observation in order to be truly appreciated. The
fineness of a fan will only be discernible within a few centimetres.
Let me add that the differentiation between private and public spaces
is far from always clear. Indeed, many intermediary areas escape this type
of classification. For example, private garden squares in some English cit-
ies, to which only the owners of the neighbourhood had the keys, did not
prevent people from spying on what was going on behind the gates.
Likewise, in the past, the bedroom with its stately furnishings could be
the room where important visitors were received (the standards of domes-
tic privacy having evolved considerably over the centuries). This is why
proposing analyses in terms of ‘front’ and ‘back’ stage, as Goffman noto-
riously did, sometimes proves to be rather unsatisfactory. Throughout
this book, we will come across a number of recurring themes related to
the issue of visibility: from that of privileged access (opening one’s collec-
tions only for the most eminent guests) to that of repetition entailing a
sense of implantation (renting, season after season, the same box at the
opera), without neglecting, of course, that of meaning—some visual mes-
sages being difficult to understand for the general public, which does not
prevent them from being impressive.
Among the variables that also caught my attention is the division
between quantitative and qualitative demonstrations. Is it more dazzling
to have an extremely large wardrobe in order to hardly ever wear the same
clothes, or just a few splendid outfits made by very famous fashion design-
ers? It goes without saying that quantity and quality are by no means
incompatible. Some people enjoy cellars amply stocked with bottles of
great vintages, or precious sets of tableware made up of hundreds of
14 External Signs

pieces. Nevertheless, such a perspective invites us to shed light on differ-

ent patterns: from unique objects (possibly endowed with a prestigious
name) to those that are rare but reproducible (e.g. manuscripts that could
be copied), or acquired in several units for practical purposes (such as
those ceremonial tents that were set up in advance at the ulterior stages of
an expedition). In addition, examining quantitative distinctions led me
to differentiate between logics of profusion (pyramids of roasted chickens
in West Africa), variety (assortment of dozens of dishes) and size. We
sometimes observe astonishing attempts to outdo rivals, based on the
spectacular staging of abundance, especially when dictated by the require-
ments of ostentatious hospitality. A recurrent way to play the card of
quantitative superiority also involves proclaiming that you do not know
exactly what is at your disposal (the number of rooms in your residences,
for example).
Although the comparative study of prestige goods does stimulate ana-
lytical and typological ambitions, it is inconceivable without seriously
taking into account cultural factors. In line with what has been put for-
ward in the general introduction, it is a matter of both arriving at clear
theorisations and giving their full place to the universes of meaning. This
will be my twofold concern in the next five chapters, which will deal in
turn with ornaments, dwellings, vehicles, food, and burials.

Notes
1. This literature goes back to the moralising texts of antiquity and contin-
ues to be the subject of essays stigmatising luxury in the name of differ-
ent ideals or, more exceptionally, advocating it. We know that the
eighteenth century marked an important turning point. Authors such as
Mandeville, Voltaire or Hume began to consider luxury with a benevo-
lent eye for economic or civilisational reasons. However, there were prec-
edents as early as the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in a perspective
of glorification of God (and his servants) or in the line of Aristotelian
theses about magnificence.
2. Thus, for example, with regard to certain shells highly prized for their
colours or their shimmering appearance (which could be both emblems
 External Signs 15

of status and means of payment), we should not underestimate the sym-

bolic richness with which they were endowed, very often in relation to a
whole cosmogony.
3. Queen Alexandra (the wife of Edward VII) had the flowers of hundreds
of bouquets changed every morning in her large residence next to
Buckingham Palace. P. McNeil and G. Riello, Luxury: A Rich History,
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2016, p. 172.
4. Possibly from the point of view of a momentary demonstration of afflu-
ence or bravado, which is in line with the theme of the synecdoche, in
the sense of investment in a particular field with the hope of giving a
general impression of distinction (I refer to my discussions in this regard
in Rethinking Social Distinction, op. cit., Chapter 5), but here from a
temporal point of view. Some borrowing strategies follow the same
pattern.
5. See especially M.W. Helms, Ulysses’ Sails: An Ethnographic Odyssey of
Power, Knowledge and Geographical Distance, Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1988.
6. Romans in Greece, Abbasid Arabs in Persia, Crusaders in Palestine, the
British ‘going native’ in India, etc. On this theme, cf., for example, the
book by J. Irigoyen-Garcia, ‘Moors Dressed as Moors’: Clothing, Social
Distinction and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2017), which deals with the attachment of Iberian hidal-
gos to the Moorish ‘game of canes’ equestrian sport, fascinated as they
were by the elegant appearance of the Arab riders and their silky outfits.
7. Bronze candelabra from Corinth, for instance, or later, during the
Renaissance, Milanese parade armour.
8. See M. Ricca & R. Robins, Meta-Luxury: Brands and the Culture of
Excellence, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
9. The formula signis exterioribus dates back to the theologians of the
Middle Ages.
10. The Principles of Sociology, vol. II/part IV: Ceremonial Institutions, London:
Williams & Norgate, 1893.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A lady in black
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: A lady in black

Author: Florence Warden

Release date: December 4, 2023 [eBook #72314]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The International News Company,

1895

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LADY IN

BLACK ***
 A LADY IN BLACK
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
Author of “The House on the Marsh,” “A Terrible Family,”
“Adela’s Ordeal,” “A Perfect Fool,” “A Sensational
Case,” etc.

THE TRADE SUPPLIED BY

THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS COMPANY,
LONDON. NEW YORK. LEIPSIC.
 [COPYRIGHT.]
Copyright, 1895,
by
The International News Company.
[All Rights Reserved.]
 CONTENTS.
I.—A Mystery Somewhere
II.—A Penitent
III.—An Invitation and a Warning
IV.—Was It a Recognition?
V.—A Startling Visit
VI.—Mr. Banks
VII.—A Strange Fancy
VIII.—A Haunted House
IX.—A Picture
X.—The Picking Up of Some Silver Threads
XI.—An Interview with Mr. Banks
XII.—A Horrible Secret
XIII.—Mrs. Dale’s Version of the Story
XIV.—No Mercy
XV.—Some Explanations
 A LADY IN BLACK.

CHAPTER I.
A MYSTERY SOMEWHERE.

“And besides, you know, my dear Mrs. Rose, there is generally

something wrong about a woman who dresses so very well.”
So spoke Mrs. Bonnington, the Vicar’s wife, laying down the law; a
law indeed, which most English women are ready to take for
granted. Mrs. Rose, a tall, thin, pale lady who had “nerves,” and who,
on this bright April morning, wore a woollen shawl half off her
shoulders as she sat in the warm sun by the dining-room window,
assented readily.
“That’s what I always say. Especially a widow. I’m sure if anything
were to happen to my husband,” went on Mrs. Rose euphemistically,
“the last thing I should think about would be my dress. I should be far
too unhappy to trouble myself about the fit of my dresses or the
shape of my bonnets.”
Now this was perhaps true, as Mrs. Rose, though she spent as
much money and as much thought upon her clothes as her
compeers, never succeeded in looking as if her clothes had been
made for her, or as if the subject of “fit” were of any importance.
Mrs. Bonnington shook her head with vague disquietude, and
resumed her homily.
“I assure you the matter has caused me a good deal of anxiety.
You know how solicitous both the Vicar and I are about the tone of
the parish.”
“I do indeed,” murmured Mrs. Rose sympathetically.
“You know how hard we work to keep up a high standard. Why,
everybody knows that it was through us that those objectionable
people at Colwyn Lodge went away, and how we would do anything
to rid the place of those terrible Solomons at Stone Court!”
At the other end of the room, a young face, with gray eyes full of
mischief, was turned in the direction of Mrs. Bonnington with a
satirical smile. Mabin Rose, the overgrown, awkward step-daughter
of Mrs. Rose, who hated the Vicar’s wife, and called her a busybody
and a gossip, brought her darning nearer to the table and dashed
headlong into the fray.
“Papa wouldn’t thank you if you did drive the Solomons out of the
parish, as you did the people at Colwyn Lodge, Mrs. Bonnington,”
broke in the clear young voice that would be heard. “He says Mr.
Solomon is the best tenant he ever had, and that he wishes that
some of the Christians were like him.”
“Hush, Mabin. Go on with your work, and don’t interrupt with your
rude remarks,” said Mrs. Rose sharply. “I am quite sure your father
never said such a thing, except perhaps in fun,” she went on, turning
apologetically to her visitor. “Nobody is more anxious about ‘tone’
and all those things than Mr. Rose, and he was saying only
yesterday that he would rather I didn’t call upon this Mrs. Dale until
something more was known about her.”
Again the young face at the other end of the table looked up
mutinously; but this time Mabin controlled her inclination to protest.
She looked down again, and began to darn furiously, to the relief of
her feelings, but to the injury of the stocking.
Mrs. Bonnington went on:
“You were quite right. It’s not that I wish to be uncharitable.”
“Of course not,” assented Mrs. Rose with fervor.
“But a woman like yourself, with daughters to take care of, cannot
be too careful. Young people are so easily led away; they think so
much of the mere outside. They are so easily dazzled and taken in
by appearances.”
Mabin grew red, perceiving that this little sermon by the way was
directed at herself. Her step-sisters, Emily and Ethel, one of whom
could be heard “practising” in the drawing-room, were not the sort of
girls to be led away by anything.
“But why shouldn’t a nice face mean something nice?” put in the
rash young woman again.
 The fact was that Mabin had been charmed with the sweet pink-
and-white face and blue eyes of Mrs. Dale, their new neighbor at
“The Towers,” and was mentally comparing the widow’s childlike
charms with the acidulated attractions of the Vicar’s dowdy wife.
“And why,” pursued Mabin, as both the elder ladies seemed to
pause to gain strength to fall upon her together, “shouldn’t she be
just as sorry for her husband’s death because she looks nice over it?
It seemed to me, when she sat near us at church on Sunday, that
she had the saddest face I had ever seen. And as for her corrupting
us by her ‘tone,’ she won’t have anything to do with any of us. Mrs.
Warren has called upon her, and the Miss Bradleys and Mrs. Peak
and a lot more people, and she’s always ‘not at home.’ So even if
she is wicked, I should think you might let her stay. Surely she can’t
do us much harm just by having her frocks better made than the rest
of us.”
When Mabin had finished this outrageous speech, there was an
awful pause. Mrs. Rose hardly knew how to administer such a
reproof as should be sufficiently scathing; while Mrs. Bonnington
waited in solemn silence for the reproof to come. Mabin looked from
her step-mother’s face to that of the Vicar’s wife, and thought she
had better retire before the avalanche descended. So she gathered
up her work hastily, running her darning-needle into her hand in her
excitement, muttered an awkward apology and excuse for her
disappearance at the same time, and shot out of the room in the
ungainly way which had so often before caused her stepmother to
shudder, as she did now.
When the door had closed upon the girl, closed, unfortunately, with
a bang, Mrs. Bonnington sighed.
“I am afraid,” she said, unconsciously assuming still more of her
usual clerical tone and accent, “that Mabin must be a great anxiety to
you!”
Mrs. Rose sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, wearily.
“If you could realize how great an anxiety,” she murmured in a
solemn tone, “you would pity me! If it were not that Mr. Rose gives
his authority to support mine in dealing with her, she would be
absolutely unmanageable, I assure you.”
 “A froward spirit! And one singularly unsusceptible to good
influences,” said the Vicar’s wife. “However, we must persevere with
her, and hope for a future blessing on our labors, even if it should
come too late for us to be witnesses of her regeneration.”
“I am sure I have always done my best for her, and treated her just
as I have my own children. But you see with what different results!
The seed is the same, but the soil is not. I don’t know whether you
knew her mother? But I suppose Mabin must take after her. She is
utterly unlike her father.”
“She is indeed. Mr. Rose is such a particularly judicious, upright
man. The Vicar has the highest respect for him.”
Mrs. Bonnington paused, to give full effect to this noble encomium.
Mrs. Rose acknowledged it by a graceful bend of the head, and went
on:
“The great failing about poor Mabin is that she is not womanly.
And that is the one thing above all that my husband asks of a
woman. Let her only be womanly, he always says, and I will forgive
everything else. Now my own girls are that, above everything.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnington with decision; “but that is just the
fault of our age, Mrs. Rose. Girls are no longer brought up to be
contented to be girls. They must put themselves on the same footing
with their brothers. Mabin is in the fashion. And no doubt that is all
she desires. You see how this Mrs. Dale has caught hold of her
imagination, by nothing but her fashionable clothes!”
Mrs. Rose put on a womanly air of absolute helplessness:
“Well, what can I do?” said she.
Mrs. Bonnington came a little nearer.
“In the case of this Mrs. Dale,” said she in a lower voice, “go on
just as you have begun. Do not call upon her. Do not have anything
to do with her. To tell you the truth, it was about her that I came to
see you this morning. She has already brought mischief into our own
peaceful home. She is a dangerous woman.”
“Dear me! You don’t mean that!” said Mrs. Rose with vivid interest.
“Unhappily I do. My son Rudolph came back from his ship only ten
days ago, and already he can think of nothing but this Mrs. Dale.”
“After having had the unpardonable insolence to leave your call
unreturned, she has got hold of your son?” gasped Mrs. Rose.
 “Well, not exactly that, as far as I know,” admitted the Vicar’s wife.
“He says he has never spoken to her. And the dear boy has never
told me an untruth before.”
“But if this dreadful woman has entangled him, of course she
might make him say anything!” cried Mrs. Rose in sympathetic
agonies.
“I should not like to accuse a fellow-woman of doing that,” replied
Mrs. Bonnington, severely; “but I think it is a bad and unnatural sign,
when my son, who has never taken the least notice of any of the
young girls in the neighborhood, becomes absorbed, in a few days,
in the doings of a person who is a complete stranger to him and who
calls herself a widow.”
“Then don’t you think,” purred Mrs. Rose, with the eagerness of
one who scents a scandal, “that she is a widow?”
There was a pause. And Mrs. Bonnington spoke next, with the
deliberation of one who has a great duty to perform.
“I should be very sorry to have it said of me that I was the first to
start a rumor which might be thought unchristian or unkind,” she said
with a deprecatory wave of the brown cotton gloves she wore in the
mornings. “But I have thought it my duty to make inquiries, and I
deeply regret to say that I have found out several things which lead
me to the conclusion that this person has settled down in our midst
under false pretences.”
“You don’t say so!”
“You shall judge for yourself. In the first place, although she calls
herself Mrs. Dale, the initials on some of her linen are ‘D. M.’ Now M.
does not stand for ‘Dale,’ does it?”
“Perhaps her maiden name began with M.,” suggested Mrs. Rose.
“My informant tells me,” went on Mrs. Bonnington, as if offended
by the interruption, “that in her old books, school-books and work of
that sort, there is written the name ‘Dorothy Leatham.’ So that she
seems to have passed already by three different names. I leave it to
your own common sense whether that is not a curious circumstance,
considering that she is still young.”
“It is certainly curious, very curious. And—and—”
Mrs. Rose hardly liked to ask on what authority her visitor made
these statements, which savored strongly of the back-stairs. She had
hardly paused an instant before Mrs. Bonnington rushed into further
details:
“And now here is another thing which is very strange: her servants
have none of them been with her long. They were all engaged
together, three months ago in London, not by Mrs. Dale herself, but
by an old lady whose name nobody seems to know. Now isn’t that
rather remarkable? They all came down here, and had the place
ready for their mistress, before they so much as saw her.”
Mrs. Bonnington leaned back in her chair, and drew on her brown
cotton gloves further. Mrs. Rose wondered again as to the source of
this information. She felt a little ashamed of listening to all this
gossip, and was less inclined than her friend to take a suspicious
view of the case, strange though it was. So she contented herself
with murmured interjections, to fill up the pause before Mrs.
Bonnington went on again:
“However, I have got a clew to where she came from, for a van-
load of furniture came down before she arrived, and it came from
Todcaster.”
“Todcaster!” echoed Mrs. Rose. “Then we shall soon know
something more about her. Mr. Rose’s old friend, Mrs. Haybrow, is
coming down to see us early next month. She lived near Todcaster
when she was a girl, and she often goes back to the old place, and
keeps in touch with all the people about there.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Bonnington, rising from her chair, and speaking in
a rather more stilted tone than at first, with the consciousness that
her news had hardly been received as she had expected, “I sincerely
trust we may find we have been mistaken. No one will rejoice more
unfeignedly than I if she proves to be indeed what she gives herself
out to be. Indeed, if she had received me frankly at the outset, I
would have shown her such Christian sympathy as one soul can give
to another without asking any questions. And it is only in the
interests of our young people that I lift up my voice now.”
The Vicar’s wife then took her leave, and went on her way to
complete her morning rounds. She was rather a terrible person, this
little, faded middle-aged woman with the curate’s voice and the
curate’s manner, uniting, as she did, a desperate interest in other
people’s affairs with a profound conviction that her interference in
them could only be for good. But she had her good points. A
devoted, submissive, and worshipful wife, she modified her worship
by considering herself the Vicar’s guardian angel. A parish busybody
and tyrant, she never spared herself and could show true womanly
kindness to such of her husband’s parishioners as were not of “a
froward spirit.”
Unluckily, she had not the power of conciliating, but had, on the
contrary, a grand talent for raising up antagonism in unregenerate
minds like those of the unfortunate Mabin.
The young girl had been both sorry and ashamed at her own loss
of temper. Not that an outburst such as that she had indulged in was
any unusual thing. Like many young girls of spirit under injudicious
rule, Mabin was in a state of perpetual friction with those around her.
Her step-mother was not intentionally unkind; but poor Mabin had to
suffer from the constant comparison of her unruly and independent
self with her quiet and insipid half-sisters.
And the worst of it was that her father was even less indulgent
than his wife to her waywardness. A stiff, straight-laced, narrow-
minded man, accustomed to be looked up to and deferred to by the
female members of his household, he disapproved in the strongest
manner both of the erratic moods of his eldest daughter, and of her
longing for independence. It was from him, indeed, that Mabin chiefly
suffered. She looked upon the cold, handsome, aquiline face of her
father with something very much like horror, and the mere fact that
he approved only of submissive “womanly” women seemed to goad
her into the very rebelliousness and independence which shocked
him so deeply.
At the same time that he disapproved of her, however, Mr. Rose
did not hesitate to avail himself of his daughter’s bright wits; and if
any task requiring a little thought or a little judgment presented itself,
it was always upon Mabin’s shoulders that he put the burden.
He had even gone so far, protesting loudly the while against the
“unfeminine” practice, as to allow Mabin to ride a bicycle; and it was
on this machine that the girl was expected to go into Seagate two or
three times a week, to fetch him his books and magazines from the
local library.
 As Mrs. Bonnington descended the steps of the big stone house,
and, emerging from the portico, made her way down the broad
gravel path to the gate, she met Mabin coming out by the side gate
among the evergreens with her bicycle by her side.
Now if there was one thing more detestable in the eyes of the
Vicar’s wife than another, it was a bicycle. But this detestation
increased tenfold when the rider of the obnoxious machine was a
woman. It was her one grievance against upright Mr. Rose that he
allowed his nineteen-year-old daughter to “career about the country”
on the abominable thing.
She uttered an involuntary “Ugh!” of disgust as the thing almost
touched her uplifted skirts.
“I beg your pardon. I hope I didn’t run against you. I am so
clumsy,” said Mabin with studied politeness.
“You can’t expect to be anything but clumsy while you use such a
thing as that!” said Mrs. Bonnington severely. “I wish for your own
sake it would get broken, that you might never be seen in an attitude
so unbecoming to a gentlewoman again.”
“Is it you who tell your sons to throw stones at it when I am riding
past the Vicarage?” said Mabin, trying to speak civilly, while the
blood rose to her cheeks. “Walter struck the hind wheel two days
ago, and now I have to walk as long as I am within stone’s-throw of
your garden wall.”
“I have heard nothing about it,” said Mrs. Bonnington icily.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” said Mabin, keeping her tone in check.
“But I see Rudolph has taken to riding one too since he’s been back.
So if they throw stones at me, I can have my revenge upon him,” she
concluded darkly.
“If girls unsex themselves, they can’t expect to be treated with the
chivalry they used to receive,” said Mrs. Bonnington, as, not caring
to continue the encounter with the rebellious one, she turned her
back, and went down the hill.
 CHAPTER II.
A PENITENT.

Mabin looked at Mrs. Bonnington’s retreating figure, half regretfully

and half resentfully. The regret was for her own incivility; the
resentment was for the want of tact which had provoked it.
Mabin, like so many other young girls on the threshold of
womanhood, lived in a constant state of warfare both with herself
and her neighbors. Sensitive, affectionate, hasty tempered and
wilful, she was at the same time almost morbidly modest and
mistrustful of herself; so that she passed her time in alternate bursts
of angry resentment against those who misunderstood her, and fits
of remorse for her own shortcomings.
She now mounted her bicycle with the feeling that the Vicar’s wife
had spoilt her morning’s ride for her. Not by any means a vain girl,
she underrated her own attractions, which included a pretty, gray-
eyed little flower-face, a fair skin, and short, soft, dark-brown hair.
But she was keenly alive to the reproach of clumsiness, which had
so often been cast at her. She had shot up, within the last three
years, to a height which, together with the girlish leanness of her
figure, had caused her to be called, even outside the family circle, “a
lamp-post” and a “gawky creature.” And although she stubbornly
refused to take to the long skirts which would have lent her the grace
she wanted, she nourished a smouldering indignation against her
traducers.
And chief among these were the boys of the Vicarage, against
whom, as against their mother for her criticisms, and their father for
his dull sermons, her spirit was always in arms.
The strife between the Bonningtons and the Roses had not always
been so keen. Indeed, in the old days when they were children
together, Mabin and Rudolph had got on well enough together, and
had exchanged love-tokens of ends of slate pencil, lumps of chalk,
and bird’s eggs. But with advancing years had come first coolness
and then estrangement. So that it was now the correct thing among
the Bonnington boys to laugh at Mabin for being “advanced,”
“superior,” “a New Woman,” and a “fright;” while she, on her side,
treated them with lofty contempt as “savages” and “boors.”
Mabin had not gone twenty yards, however, on her way up the
slight ascent, when she saw something which diverted her thoughts
from the Vicarage people. The gates at “The Towers” were wide
open, and Mrs. Dale’s smart victoria, with its well-matched pair of
small, dark-brown horses, came out so suddenly that Mabin had to
jump off her bicycle to avoid a collision. Alone in the carriage sat a
lady in deep mourning, who turned and looked out anxiously at the
girl, and stopped the carriage to speak to her.
“I’m so sorry! I hope you didn’t hurt yourself, in having to jump off
so quickly?” asked the lady in black, in a sweet, plaintive voice that
struck some chord in Mabin’s heart, and made the girl gasp, and
pause before she could answer.
“Oh no, oh no, thank you. One often has to do that,” stammered
the girl, flushing, and speaking with a shy constraint which made her
tone cold and almost rude.
And she knew it, poor child, and was miserable over it; miserable
to think that now when she had an opportunity of speaking to the
being who had excited in her an enthusiastic admiration, she was
throwing her chance away.
A common and a most tragic experience with most young girls.
One thing, however, Mabin was able to do. In the shy look with
which she returned Mrs. Dale’s kind gaze of inquiry, she took in a
picture of a lovely woman which remained impressed on her mind
ineffaceably.
Mrs. Dale was a lovely woman, lovelier than Mabin had thought
when she only got glimpses of the lady’s profile from her seat in
church, or peeps at her through a thick black veil. Mrs. Dale wore a
black veil to-day, but in the open carriage, in the full glare of the sun,
her beauty was evident enough.
A little woman, plump, pink, childlike in face and figure, with wavy
fair hair, infantine blue eyes, and a red-lipped mouth which was all
the more lovable, more attractive for not being on the strict lines of
beauty, Mrs. Dale had, so Mabin felt, exactly the right features and
the right expression for the sweet voice she had just heard. And
through the beauty, and through the voice, the girl, inspired perhaps
by the mourning dress, thought she detected a sadness which
seemed to her the most pathetic thing in the world.
In two moments the interview was over; Mrs. Dale had smiled
upon her sweetly, bidden her farewell merely with a bend of her
head, and driven away, leaving Mabin to scold herself for her idiocy
in throwing away an opportunity which she might never have again.
She did not try to overtake the carriage; she watched it down the
open road, until the shining coil of silky fair hair under the black
crape bonnet grew dim in the distance. And then, with a shrug of her
shoulders and a murmur that “it was just like her,” Mabin turned
defiantly into the road which led past the Vicarage.
However, nobody was about to throw stones at the bicycle on this
occasion; and it was not until she had reached Seagate, changed
her father’s books at the library, and matched a skein of cable silk for
Emily, that she was reminded afresh of the existence of the
Bonningtons by the sight of Rudolph, in his knickerbockers and
gaiters, standing by his bicycle while he lit a cigarette.
Unconsciously Mabin frowned a little. And unluckily Rudolph saw
the frown. She meant to pass him without appearing to notice him,
but he foresaw the intention, and was nettled by it. For Rudolph, with
his black eyes and curly black hair, and his sunbrowned face, was
the handsomest fellow in the neighborhood when he was on shore,
and was accustomed to a great deal of kindness and civility from
Mabin’s sex. Her rudeness, which arose more from shyness than
from the lofty contempt he supposed, puzzled the young fellow, and
made him angry. He remembered their ancient comradeship, which
she seemed to have forgotten; and most unwisely he let a spirit of
“devilment” get the better of him, and addressed her as if they had
been still on the old terms.
“Good-morning, Mabin,” said he.
She gave him a bend of the head, without looking at him, and was
passing on to the place where her bicycle stood outside the door of a
shop. But he would not let her escape so.
“Mayn’t I offer you a cigarette?”
To do him justice Rudolph had not noticed that a small boy with a
basket stood near enough to hear. The boy burst into shrill laughter,
and Mabin turned fiercely. For once she did not stoop.
“I’m afraid you have forgotten a great deal since you went to sea,”
she said in a voice which she could not keep steady.
The young man was surprised, and rather shocked at the way in
which he had been received. He had been anxious to heal the
breach between her and himself, and he had thought that a dash into
their old familiarity might avail where more carefully studied attempts
had failed.
Before he could do more than begin to apologize, to appeal to
their old friendship, Mabin had got on her bicycle and ridden away.
The sun was beating down fiercely by this time upon the white
chalky roads; but Mabin rode on recklessly, at a higher speed than
usual. She was well on her way back to Stone, when, turning her
head to look along the road she had come by, she perceived that
Rudolph was not far behind. She had forgiven his indiscretion by this
time, and rather hoped that he was following quickly on purpose to
“make it up.” So she went on her way through a group of straggling
cottages, at a rather slower pace.
There was a sharp bend in the road at this point, and just as she
sounded her bell in turning the corner, she saw Rudolph, who was
now close behind, dismount and pick something up from the road.
The next moment something struck the front wheel of her bicycle,
and she and her machine were flung with violence down in the road.
She had time to utter a cry, no more, before the crash came.
Then she remembered nothing, knew nothing, until she heard
somebody sobbing close to her ears; and opening her eyes, she saw
the sweet face of Mrs. Dale, with the black veil thrown back, and with
tears in the blue eyes, leaning over her tenderly.
Mrs. Dale uttered a cry of joy, and another voice, which Mabin
recognized as Rudolph’s, said: “Thank God! she isn’t dead, at any
rate.”
“Are you better, dear? Are you in any pain?” asked Mrs. Dale with
so much solicitude that answering tears of sympathetic emotion
started into the girl’s own eyes.
“I am quite well, quite well,” said Mabin. “Only—only—I think my
foot hurts.”
Rudolph and Mrs. Dale exchanged glances.
 “I thought so,” said he. “She’s broken her ankle.”
Mrs. Dale’s pretty eyes began to fill again.
“We must lift her into the carriage,” said she. “And you will go on
and prepare her mother, and see that a doctor is sent for at once.”
And, in spite of the protests she feebly made, Mabin was gently
raised from the ground by Rudolph’s strong arms, and helped into
the victoria, where Mrs. Dale took her seat, and, telling the
coachman to drive slowly, insisted on making her own plump little
shoulder the pillow for the girl’s head.
But Mabin, having recovered her spirits, if not her walking powers,
wanted to talk to the new friend she had so unexpectedly made.
“You are very good to me,” she said. “I have never had so much
kindness from any one since my mother died. It was so strange;
when I woke up just now I felt what I thought was my mother’s touch
again. And yet I had forgotten all about that. For she has been dead
fifteen years.”
“Poor child!” said Mrs. Dale. “I am glad of that, dear, that I
reminded you of her,” she whispered gently.
“Of course I don’t mean that,” went on Mabin quickly, trying to sit
up. “I don’t mean that you could be a mother to me now, as I am.
That does sound ridiculous! You couldn’t be my mother when you
are the same age as myself.”
As a matter of fact, Mabin looked older than her companion. But
when the conversation thus turned to herself, Mrs. Dale’s pink face
grew suddenly pale, and Mabin looked at her shyly, and flushed,
feeling that she had said something wrong. But almost before she
was conscious that she had touched some sensitive spot, Mrs. Dale
said softly:
“Go on talking, dear, about your mother, or—or anything. I am
lonely, you know; very lonely. And it is a treat to hear you talk.”
The girl flushed again, this time with surprise.
“You like to hear me talk! Ah, then you must be lonely indeed. For
they say at home I never talk without saying the very last thing I
ought to say.”
As she came to the end of her speech, Mabin found that her words
insensibly began to run the one into the other, and that her voice